“It is an effort to mend a social machine that is badly out of repair,” he answered. “The hewer of wood is demanding a fire, the drawer of water a drink. The producer is striving to keep a little more of what he produces.”
He held up a side of the industrial picture that was the reverse of what Don Riccardo’s prospective son-in-law liked to present. His words did not square with Tarsis’s assertion that the heart of a statesman should be in his head. He gave reasons why some are rich and some are poor, and though new to those at the table, they felt that they were listening to no sentimental dreamer. He struck the key-note of the century’s new thought. If his head did lift itself toward the clouds at times, his feet remained firmly planted on the earth, and his ideals were those of a man determined to be useful in the world.
It was good, Hera thought, to look upon him; good to hear his voice, good to feel that one admired him. And Donna Beatrice, looking over the rims of her pince-nez, was seized with alarm. Their guest’s discourse might be interesting, she told herself, but she was positive there was nothing in it to command such wrapt attention on the part of her niece. When they had risen, and Mario and Hera were leading the way to the reception hall, she pulled at her brother’s coat sleeve to hold him in the alcoved passage; and, standing there amid the tapestries and trophies of shields and arms, the poor woman made known her doubts and fears.
“Riccardo, what does this mean? I say it is most extraordinary.”
“Yes, the coffee was not delicious,” he observed. “The cook is drinking absinthe again.”
“The coffee! I speak of Hera.”
“In what has she offended now?” he inquired, clasping his hands behind him and looking up at an ancestral portrait dim with the centuries.
“You ask that?” she rejoined sceptically. “But no; it is impossible that even a man could be so blind. I thank Heaven Antonio Tarsis was not present.”
“I always thank Heaven when he is not present,” Don Riccardo confessed, and his sister winced. “What crime has Hera committed?”
“On the eve of her marriage she is showing a scandalous interest in a man who is not to be her husband.”